How BELLA Is Reimagining Banking with Angelo D'Alessandro
Today, is a special episode, of great personal importance to me.
I have been learning and studying and training in fintech for years, both as a founder and through this podcast, where I’m able to have conversations with the most visionary and impactful founders, CEOs and VCs in the world of fintech.
For the past year, I’ve been channeling all of this experience and insight into a new company, called BELLA, that is leading with digital banking in an effort to create positive change in the world.
BELLA launched in the US on November 30th, and everything has been a blur since then. Taking a new consumer company into the world for the first time has to be one of the most thrilling experiences that exists.
In today’s conversation, I’m joined by Angelo D’Alessandro, CEO of BELLA and my co-founder, but more importantly my close friend and mentor, to talk about what we’re building.
We cover our backstory, Angelo’s approach to building teams and brands, BELLA’s vision and offering, the influence of Rob LoCascio and LivePerson, the state of the world in 2020 and the implications for startups and brands going forward, and more.
For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.rebank.cc.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Angelo D'Alessandro.
Full transcript:
Will Beeson:
Angelo D'Alessandro, welcome to Rebank.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
Hey, Will. Good morning. Thank you for having me.
Will Beeson:
Did I pronounce your name correctly?
Angelo D'Alessandro:
Perfectly. You speak Italian better than me. I don't know if your audience knows that, but you're great in Italian.
Will Beeson:
I don't think they do. I was daydreaming about at one point doing some sort of podcast only in Italian. Today's maybe not a good day for that because I want the message to be spread far and wide. So I think the best place to start has to be our origin story. We first got in touch through the podcast actually. You were, at the time, and I can't remember exactly when this was, but it must've been going on four years ago. You were starting the world's first conversational bank called Buddybank in Italy. And I was enamored with the concept. I was starting a bank in London at the time, which we launched last year called Allica. And we were part of a very small group of people in Europe, digital bank founders.
Will Beeson:
And I reached out to you because I wanted to be able to tell your story. And that conversation never happened. You can tell us why. But refresh my memory because I love hearing you tell the story. So where did it go from there and how did we get here?
Angelo D'Alessandro:
Sure, when you contacted me, we were in a very particular phase of Buddybank as a project. And by the way, Buddybank is a very successful, conversational banking experience up and running in Italy and was the first digital bank based on a conversational platform. Which at the end of the day is the LivePerson conversational platform. But beside that, with Buddybank, the story was pretty crazy, also one of the best experiences I ever had in my entire career. And we launched Buddybank as a separated company, totally disconnected from UniCredit. UniCredit was our strategic backer, let me call it like this, and was our investor, the only investor we had at that time. So we went for a banking license. We built the technology outside UniCredit and we had two huge sponsors. One was the CEO, Federico Pizzone. Now, Federico is doing other great stuff. And the other one was my boss, great visionary, brave, one of the best top managers I ever met in my life called Paulo Fiorentino.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
So both of them and the board of directors of UniCredit decided to bet on Buddybank and create this new bank, a new bank, not a digital channel, a new bank. Unfortunately, Federico left UniCredit and also Paolo left UniCredit. And a new top management, a more conservative, let me call it, came and took the leadership of the entire bank. And most of the time when this thing happens, the new people join and they try to kind of delete, remove everything that happened in the past. Most of the things, but not all of it. Fortunately, they didn't remove Buddybank. But we were living in that phase where you contacted me, actually a very particular and weird six months where we didn't really know what was happening to the project and to the bank itself. And when you called me to do the podcast, we were in that phase.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
In that phase in UniCredit, there was a kind of weird personality, a lady, I can't recall the name, but she was leading communications as a consultant. But it basically, they stopped us to communicate anything we could. And also especially things outside the perimeter where Buddybank bank was operating. So when I asked them, "Can I go and do this podcast in UK?" That actually was not in UK, but it was international, they of course they told me, "No, you can't." So I was very upset. But, due to the fact I had a meeting with HSBC at that time with my innovation peers, let me call it, like a free conversation with them, I came to London and we met, I remember for a lunch.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
And when I saw you the first time, and we started to talk about your passion, what you were doing, you were building a bank as well, and your passion for Italy and you started to speak Italian. I told myself this guy is so smart and I love this guy so I want to do something. And I told you, it was three years and a half ago I think, I told you, "I will. I don't know why or when, but we're going to work together one day." And then this happened one year ago when I called you and you gave me the privilege to accept my offer. And I'm very honored now to work with you and build something together.
Will Beeson:
So firstly, you're way, way too gracious. The honor and the pleasure is all mine. But, the thing that sticks out most to me about that day apart from our connection, which was of course the highlight, but that lunch that you're talking about was in the building that Revolut either was in at the time or is in now. And there's just something eerie almost about that in that what we're doing now with Bella is almost the opposite of Revolut in so many ways, which I think we can get into, but it's funny that there was the FinTech, the digital banking link, even there unbeknownst to us. And now we've kind of come full circle from there.
Will Beeson:
So you, at the time, were based in Italy. I was based in London. And the way events played out is that the founder and CEO of a NASDAQ listed B2B software company, LivePerson, which you mentioned, who had provided some of the infrastructure into Buddybank, basically called you and said, "I love what you're doing at Buddybank so much. I want to back you to found a new digital bank in the US. So move over here and I'll fund you." And you called me and we moved to New York and we did it together. So talk a little bit about how this project came together.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
I think that in general, in life, everything is based on the people that you meet during your journey, during your act, your scene, your show. So as happened, I met in my career, now it's 20 years, I always met, at a certain point, people that to me were like angels, like real angels. People that literally changed my path. And this is something that happens to most of the people out there. Even if you think that it's not happening to you, it is. You just need to be aware and curious to understand who those people are.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
So, for example, I mentioned Paulo Fiorentino. There is another great man that you met, Mauro Castiglioni, that was my first boss. He was the CEO of, Cisalpina Asset Management company in 2000, when I started to work in this industry. And then there is Rob. Rob LoCascio, because he is Italian, but here they call it "LoCasio."
Angelo D'Alessandro:
Rob is a dreamer, and a visionary man, who realized something huge. Rob did what he has today without help, without a company behind. He built one from scratch. I remember, Rob came to Milan when we were on the market with Buddybank, we launched in 2018, and Rob came visiting me and he met the team and we organized a very nice welcome ceremony at the office. We were leveraging a lot LivePerson technology, and Buddybank still is doing this thing. So Rob came and he saw with his eyes, he saw this brand, Buddybank, people working, they were very excited. He saw the customers coming in and using the platform and he really liked that. And we spent some time talking about the future and how we can make the world a better place and what we can do.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
And after one month he called me saying, "Look, I want to propose you to do something together. And in the US." And actually it was my dream coming here doing that. And so we discussed a little bit in how we could collaborate with this new brand that we wanted to launch, and I accepted the offer. And I started to build the team and we are working all together with Rob as well, building what we built so far and the future of this brand that will go beyond banking very soon.
Will Beeson:
All right. So before we dig into the meat of Bella, I want to touch on one thing, which is how inspiring I find you to be as a leader. You were talking about all these CEOs that you knew in Italy and the US and I totally agree with you, Rob is one of the most visionary people I've ever known. But you are one of the best leaders I've ever known. And you've told me this story before, and I won't ask you to dig into it in detail, but I didn't know when we first met three and a half years ago that you were formerly a professional jazz musician. And the way that you did that was basically by pulling together a very strong team of people that had strong technical skills and believed in your vision. And you did that then, you did that at Buddybank, you did it here again with Bella. Tell me a little bit about your outlook on how you motivate and inspire and how you build the team.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
I don't know if I inspire, but I can tell you what I like to do. I like to build brands. Indeed, we were talking with Rob a couple of weeks ago at his place in New York City. And I told him, "I'm not a banker. I work in banking and I am enjoying it. And now in the tech industry, but I like to build brands." So you mentioned the jazz band. And before that, actually, I did other stuff. Even when I was a teenager, I was organizing stuff and building ideas.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
The first actually thing that I did, and you don't know that, I wrote a musical and it was like, I don't remember neither when it was. I wrote a musical and I produced the musical, I found sponsors, I put together a cast of professional people. I really don't know how I did it, with the audition and all this kind of stuff. And we launched this musical in the most famous theater in Milan with big sponsors behind. And it was beautiful. We wrote everything. Songs, the story, and it was a very passionate and emotional story. And then I started to study a little bit, because I pretend to be a singer. But then I realized, okay, what's my dream here? I don't want to do musicals because I'm not that good doing it. And I want to sing like Sinatra or Michael Bublé. But I knew that I was not neither Sinatra or Michael Bublé. But I had a dream.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
And the second dream after this musical was play and sing at the Blue Note jazz club that, as you know, is a worldwide known jazz club. So there is one in New York and Tokyo, and one in Milan, which I was very proud about that. And I was going there and watching great concerts of great musicians from the US and all around the world. So I said, "How can I reach that stage if I'm not that good?" So I said, "Okay, first let's build a brand around that experience." So I went online, I was like okay, "How can I call up a jazz band to celebrate the golden age that Sinatra, The Rat Pack era?" And I said, "Okay, Copa Room. Let's call it Copa Room." Copa Room was the name of the club at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, where Sammy Davis Junior, Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, and Frank Sinatra used to sing. So I say, "Oh, I like this name. So let's pick that name." The band is going to be called Copa Room. But it's not enough.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
So I build a good website around a beautiful image. This was like 20 years ago. And, how can I reach the Blue Note stage if I'm not that talented doing it, but I'm good in building brands? Surrounding myself of very great talents, very great musicians, people that are better than me doing stuff. In this case, playing music. And I did it. I was able to attract very talented musicians that then became friends and little by little, we started this project and after three or four years playing around in more clubs, finally we convinced the Blue Note to accept us. And they gave us the worst Sunday night of the year. It was snowing in Milan, it was a very important football match on TV, the most important of the year.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
So we said, "Okay, we're going to have my family watching us and that's it. But actually we sold out the club and we sold out the Blue Note for 12 dates. Over a couple of years, we went to China for a tour and, long story short, that could become my career. But I said, no, because I was working in banking in the meantime. So I said, "No, I don't want to do this. I just wanted to realize that. I wanted to measure myself for what I can do." So it was beautiful, but I knew that I couldn't be a singer.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
But with the same approach, for this reason it's very important, Will, what we're doing together. With the same approach I built Buddybank first, because I'm not a banker, but actually this is my second, let me call it, bank even if it's not... It's a digital banking service, but let me call it bank. And the second one is Bella. With the same approach. I said, "Okay, I think I have some good ideas. And I want to surround myself with great people. Managers, entrepreneurs that are able to execute the vision, to reach the vision, to do what we think is right and in this case, and I'm talking about Bella, not focusing on another digital app or another digital banking experience, but focusing on different things. In this case, focusing on people's values, focusing on helping people and doing it, having fun in a very short time, because as we did together, we built and we launched Bella in just one year. So this is how I like to build brands.
Will Beeson:
All right. So the time has definitely come to give us the big Bella pitch. What's the 60-second synopsis of what Bella is?
Angelo D'Alessandro:
Very good. So we believe that there is a clear lack of love, empathy, tenderness within the banking industry. So this is what we're going for. We're going to change that and we're already doing it. Today, the banking industry, and you know that, is based on processes. So everything is connected with processes. We need processes, but we need also human instinct to help other people. Don't forget that even with a Stanford degree, you remain an animal. You remain where we all started. We are animals and we have instincts. We need to help other animals. We need to protect ourselves from other animals. And why I'm going that far, because today, we cannot survive just following processes. So if a member of a bank, or a customer as they call it, we call it member, but let's call it customer for a second, needs help, and I'm not talking about needs help because they just need money, but they need help in general. They are in a situation where they need a human help. We need to help. We need to be ready to go the extra mile for them.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
So this is the core concept of Bella. Plus, what we are creating together, and I'm happy that you are leading the product and you're doing an amazing job here, is to build a product that can allow people to have fun using Bella to help other people using Bella, to feel better helping other people using Bella, and accelerate this feeling of oxytocin into your body because you know that when we help others, we feel good. Because in a certain way, something happens, a chemical reaction, our brain, our body, and with Bella, you can do this from your sofa because we are helping you to do it.
Will Beeson:
All right. So, if you bring a grand vision approach to Bella, I think I tend to view things through more of a almost like thematic or strategic lens. And that's probably obvious to anyone who's listened to any significant number of the 200+ Rebank episodes that we've done over the years. But in my mind, the most important points here are that it feels like we're at a moment in time in which banking, as we know it, is becoming a utility. And brands with philosophies and values in an increasingly digital and increasingly internationally connected world are where attention and value continue to accrue. So building and offering banking services with the only differentiation from your peer group, if you're an incumbent bank, of the color that's on the debit card or the sign that's above the door of the branch or the color of the mobile app, which otherwise does all the same stuff, is a utility business. And it has utility economics. And in this digital world of disruption, it's extremely difficult to imagine that utility business being profitable or in any way successful going forward.
Will Beeson:
So the options are basically to maybe overhaul the utility business and make it super efficient, super technological, reduce the role of humans and just basically offer it up as something equivalent to an electrical grid for money. Okay. The other option, and maybe it's an offshoot of option number one, is to embed financial products in other consumer experiences. So, instead of going to one place for payments and for lending and for insurance or whatever it is, for investments, you embed those pieces because you've turned them into software, you embed them into other consumer experiences. So the places that people go because they want to buy something, they want to have an experience. They want to have a meal. Whatever it is.
Will Beeson:
Or option three, the path Bella is taking. Build a strong brand with a philosophy, with a set of values, with a community around something that matters. Offer banking for free as a chassis, a foundation on which to then offer other sorts of experiences to a very strong, to a very loyal group of customers. And I think either the embedded finance or the brand option are going to be very relevant in the future. But there's something, call it personal preference, maybe it's because I'm not a hardcore engineer. But there's something about the humanity, the connection, the engagement and the richness of building the brand and building the community and engaging with customers, consumers, people in a new way, which was just makes that option three so compelling.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
Yeah. I think that your analogy was perfect. And I think that here, what we are trying to do is to, not because we want to be different, but what we have out there, especially in the digital banking space, all over the world, we have a lot of similar experiences and the traditional one that are trying to run to do something from a digital perspective, they are doing it. So we have great banking experience coming from the traditional banking industry. So there are not a lot of differences now between a very well done traditional banking app and a new banking app. Actually the traditional one can have more features than the new bank app. But the field, and the game that we are all playing, we were, because now we're playing a new one, was based on... With me, you can open the account in three minutes and with the other, you can get paid two days early. Then you can have the 0.5% interest rate if you open...
Angelo D'Alessandro:
So we were all talking about tech stuff or interest rates, or how fast it could be to open an account. Actually, even if opening an account with Bella is very fast, but we will never sell that because who cares? I'm opening a relation with someone. I want to be smooth and fast, but I don't really care if it's in 10 clicks or 20 clicks now. And I just want to join a brand that matches my values. What I believe is right, why I feel that this brand is very connected with what I'm doing. And brands like Apple, they change the world under this branding.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
And so what we're doing with Bella is exactly this thing. We tell everybody, "Hi, we're going to build a community." "Yes." We should all do it. And we are doing this with Bella. And what is happening just after we launched, 11 days today on the market. It's crazy, and you can see it, Will, what is happening. People excited to use Bella, to be part of Bella, excited to wait for Bella. We have thousands of people on the wait list. And I don't want to talk about the product. We're not promoting Bella with this podcast, but we're sharing a beautiful story. Let me jump on the details with what you can do today with Bella, because I want to connect the story of what is happening on Instagram and people can see it.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
With Bella you can do two things beside like regular banking stuff. We decided first, instead of spending money on advertising, so on Instagram and Facebook and Google, et cetera, as in a traditional way, we decided to give that money back to our members. So every time they swipe their card, they could randomly get from 5 to 200% real time money back into their checking account, which is something uncommon for the industry. So it's not a reward or a loyalty program where you swipe, you get 0.10 points, and maybe after $20,000, you get a flight to go from New York to Miami. We are talking about real money directly into your checking account randomly. So having fun using that card. And the budget pool is the budget that we saved instead of spending on traditional advertising. Let's see if this could activate the virality that we expect. It's happening already.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
But the second piece that is the most successful one, and what makes me happy and proud is the caffè sospeso. So, you know caffè sospeso means suspended coffee. It's an Italian word that we use and you know what it means, where it's a tradition actually, where you go in a coffee and you pay for two coffees, you drink only one coffee and you leave the other prepaid for another customer that maybe doesn't have the money to pay for a coffee. So we call it pay it forward. But caffè sospeso means exactly that. So, in Bella, you have the karma account, you can put up to $20 there and you could randomly surprise other people that you don't know, and they will receive a message saying, "Hey, Will, Angelo just paid for your coffee." Even if we don't know each other, and you can send me a thank you back.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
This activated a crazy thing. And there are people on Instagram, for example, two days ago, we had a very intense day here at the company. Chelsea sent us a message. Chelsea's leading operation and marketing, she's another jazz band, great team player like you, Will. And she's doing amazing stuff. And she sent me a message. She sent all of us, both of us, with the screenshot of a customer, replying to a comment on a post that we posted on Instagram saying, "Oh, I cannot wait to use Bella, but my first deposit could come in January, but I'm very happy to be part of this family." And another Bella member replied say, "Okay, give me your Bella ID. I'm going to drop some money just so you can start using Bella." And people started to do it.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
So we started a collective help for this customer, just because for no reason, just to share some love, which is the principle behind the community we are building. Changing the world through kindness, through tenderness. So I know this is not an elevator pitch, but we need time to describe these amazing things that are happening at Bella. And I'm very proud and happy that we built this together. And there are a lot of emotions going on here around this project. And I think we are onto something pretty interesting.
Will Beeson:
Firstly, I have to tell a personal story of a pay it forward. So I jumped on my bike and rode from Williamsburg over to Union Square and met my cousin for coffee. It was probably right around the time that Bella launched. I think it was a Saturday. And we had just had a loss in the family. And so we were connecting to just catch up and make sure he was doing okay. Ordered coffee and just kind of sat and talked. And it was a kind of balmy day in the late fall in New York. Talked for an hour. It was intense. It was emotional. It was deep. It was important.
Will Beeson:
And then I paid for the coffees and immediately, as you're describing, I got two push notifications. One saying, "You just spent $9.50," and another one saying, "John just paid for your coffee just to show some love." And it was like, it seems like such a small, random act. I'm getting goosebumps now just thinking about it. But it was so meaningful in that moment. Not only can there be those sorts of experiences where someone's having a tough time and someone makes their day, but even in normal cases, it's that tiny, fleeting moment of connection in a world which is increasingly digital, which is increasingly disconnected. 2020 has been really hard for everyone, we've been forced to distance from the people that we care the most about. So that tiny little moment of connection between two complete strangers is powerful. It's so powerful.
Will Beeson:
And then, just opening it up a little bit, I just mentioned 2020 and what a year it's been, I don't know about you, Angelo, but 2020 feels, as confusing and painful and dark, as it's been, it feels like a watershed year. We're going to look back on 2020 years and decades from now and point to it as the year things changed. And a year ago, right? When you and I and Chelsea and a few others at that time started working on Bella, I think it was kind of clear to all of us, on some sort of basic or unconscious level, what we were trying to do and why it mattered. But for me at least it was difficult to put into words exactly why it was so important. And then 2020 happened and society and the world kind of realigned, I think, toward positive values and realigned in the same direction that we were pointing. And I don't know. We'll see where it goes, but it feels to me like there's potential for something big here. Rock and Roll as you like to say.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
Rock and Roll, Will. Exactly. And regarding 2020, I think, maybe I'm saying something unpopular, I think is an amazing year for humanity. And it's like they put all the human beings in a shaker. The shaker is the name when you do cocktails, right? The little... And they shake us very badly. And if you imagine that before what we were doing, we were just overusing everything. The nature and the planet where we are simply guests, very short-term guests.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
Imagine, I remember we were taking one flight per week going to business meetings with no sense because we realized that we can do the same thing like we are doing now. And I'm in Los Angeles, you're in New York City and we are having a podcast. We are connected all day long. And so I think that this year, I know that this has been very tough, personally it has been very tough as well. I don't see my family. Last time I saw my mom just to give you some personal stuff, last time I saw my mom was January, 2020. So it's tough for millions of people right now, but I think that it's a kind of Renaissance for who will be lucky enough to survive through this pandemic. We will have a great opportunity to rebuild something.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
And then, 2020, I will say it, for us, so far, it's been pretty great. We launched Bella and we are trying to help people to go through this because Bella is making people happy, which is one of the reasons why we founded Bella. It was not just to get millions of customers and make money out of it, but to change the world through tenderness and helping others. And this is what we are seeing and what is making our days every single day.
Will Beeson:
Love it. Angelo, look, this was at least three and a half years overdue, this podcast. But I think we had actually a lot more interesting conversation than we would have if we'd been talking about v1 digital banks around the world. I think we can probably connect, we can catch up. Who knows? Maybe next year, once the Bella offering, which we're designing and building now, has continued to take shape and we can get into the social and commerce angles of where all this is heading. But look, this is exciting. We're going to see where it goes. It's going to be a wild ride.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
And thank you, Will, for this opportunity. And you cannot understand how happy I am of being here on your podcast today, because it was something that I wanted to do also three years and a half ago, but I could not. So this is a personal thing, and I'm very excited. So thank you for your time and more than half an hour together.
Will Beeson:
There you go. You've headlined the Blue Note, and now you've been a guest on Rebank Podcast. Angelo D'Alessandro, thank you very much for joining us today.
Angelo D'Alessandro:
Thank you very much.
